


But I caught the darkness, baby, and I got it worse than you

by lanyon



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: AU: Reincarnation, M/M, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-06 15:11:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/737077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick Fury remains silent on the matter. Stephen Strange remains silent, too. It is not magic, not when a soul is a soul, regardless of the vessel. It is not coincidence either. It is fate, in heavily classified folders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But I caught the darkness, baby, and I got it worse than you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kat8cha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kat8cha/gifts).



> +I have had the absolute worst writer's block for the past two months or so and I am so sorry to those of you waiting on final chapters (I assure you that I'm waiting on those, too). I am so sorry, too, that this is what I've produced in the interim.  
> +For a prompt involving Steve/Bucky and reincarnation.  
> +Again. I am so so sorry. This does not end well.  
> +Title from Leonard Cohen's _Darkness_.  
>  + **Warnings** for massive manipulation of memories by SHIELD and hand-waving of science/spiritual matters regarding reincarnation.  
>  +Just. So sorry.

“Rogers, Steve Rogers? My name should be on the list-”

“Yeah, I’m James Barnes, right there, under B-”

“I can spell,” says the short-haired woman, looking entirely unimpressed. 

The guy with the receding hairline looks between them. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Seriously. Steve Rogers and James Barnes?”

Steve looks at the guy next to him, with shaggy brown hair and pouty lips and it may not be normal to notice another guy’s lips but it’s really hard to look away now that he’s seen them. 

Barnes rubs the back of his neck and looks a little embarrassed. “My dad was a big history buff. Always said if he had a boy he’d call him James Buchanan Barnes.”

The guy with the receding hairline - Coulson, according to his ID badge - makes a strangled sound in the back of his neck. 

“Don’t mind Agent Coulson,” says the woman. “I think he’s just bitter that your dad stole his baby name.” 

“And what about you?” asks Coulson, looking at Steve. “Your dad a Captain America fan?”

Steve shakes his head. “No, it’s a family name. That’s all.” 

“You do know that you guys are going to be paired together for drills from now until forever, right?” asks the woman. She looks amused. Maybe. Maybe she looks amused. It’s hard to tell. “Residential floor is level six. If Coulson has his way, you’ll be rooming together.” 

Steve shrugs and Barnes just grins at him. “I won’t kick if you don’t.”

“You will actually have separate beds,” says the woman. She looks at Coulson. “They will, won’t they?” 

.

Steve Rogers is born in 1987 in Brooklyn. The similarities to any historical figures end there. His family are rich and he is born, hale and hearty and one of the biggest babies of the year. He’s starting quarterback in high school and his girlfriend’s head cheerleader and he gets into Harvard with little difficulty, where he studies Economics and his boyfriend is pre-med. 

He enlists in the Army and quickly appears on SHIELD’s radar. That’s why he finds himself in the foyer of a glass-and-steel building near Times Square with a handful of new recruits, including the alluring James Barnes. 

.

James Barnes is born in Indiana in 1991. He is born trouble and he is born charm. His parents are very young and he is partly brought up by his grandmother. He enlists in the Army, for want of other options and he catches SHIELD’s eye for very different reasons.

He’s no Clint Barton but he’s a crack-shot and his disciplinary issues are rooted in impulsiveness and a striking lack of attention span, for all that he is an accomplished sniper. He may be cooling his heels in the Helicarrier brig more often than not but he has the potential to be exactly what SHIELD needs.

.

“James Barnes and Steve Rogers?” Jasper Sitwell laughs and laughs and laughs. “They’re not posable dolls, Phil. You know that, right?”

Coulson rubs his forehead. “Jasper, please stop talking.”

.

Nick Fury remains silent on the matter. Stephen Strange remains silent, too. It is not magic, not when a soul is a soul, regardless of the vessel. It is not coincidence either. It is fate, in heavily classified folders. 

.

The original Steve Rogers and the original Bucky Barnes die in an aviation accident during the Second World War. They are swiftly replaced, after their bodies, or what remains of them, have been recovered.

.

“I can’t believe there are fucking quizzes,” says Barnes. Well. He whines it, lying back on his bed with his feet up against the wall, leaving black footprint on the grey brick. “I fucking hate quizzes. I didn’t even know what my GPA was till the guidance counsellor told me I was either headed for the Army or headed for jail.”

Steve blinks. “You didn’t know what your GPA was or what a GPA was?”

Bucky see-saws his hand and Steve has no idea if he’s telling the truth or not. 

“You are so full of shit, Barnes,” he says, after a moment, looking back at his test paper. 

“Yeah, but you love it, Rogers.”

Steve doesn’t look up though his lips twitch. “Possibly.”

.

The thing is they work incredibly well together.

The thing is Barnes has a thing for Natasha Romanov who’s about a hundred and red-headed and Russian and dangerous. 

The day he learns that she’s fucking Sharon Carter is the same day Steve’s heart breaks a little. He likes Sharon and thinks, for a while, that she likes him.

Barnes and Rogers go for a drink that night. They end up in a strip club on ladies’ night. Steve drinks more but Barnes is the one who arrives home with dollar bills in his waistband and lipstick marks on his collar. 

.

On their first mission, after they pass their quizzes and assessments and physical tests, and after Steve hears from Sitwell that Barnes aced every single test, they take down the Winter Soldier. He’s some poor relic from the Red Army who should have frozen to death in Leningrad except that he was reanimated.

“Like a zombie,” says Barnes, gesturing (animated) at the bar later that night. “He was a zombie communist with a bad tattoo.”

Steve snorts. “He also had one of the highest kill rates in Russian history.”

“Yeah, whatever. Yawn. Have another drink and loosen up. I’m sure there’ll be more killer communist zombies for you to take down in the future, Rogers.”  
Clint Barton looks from one to the other. “Okay, we’re never introducing you to Wade, Barnes. Make a note of it.”

.

On their fifth mission, Steve is captured. He is only human. It hurts a lot. Mad occultists make no sense and this one is no different, gesticulating wildly while talking about portents and cycles and heroes. 

He’s rescued by Barnes and Wilson. They don’t stop talking for the whole Quinjet ride back.

“Barton was right,” murmurs Steve. His head is in Barnes’s lap. “You guys should never have been introduced.” 

.

They are drunk. They are waiting for their test scores.

“Do you believe in past lives?” ask Barnes, attempting to rest his chin on his hand but missing.

Steve shakes his head. He doesn’t. He doesn’t think he does.

“It’s just. It’s just, Rogers, I feel like I know you.”

“Well, we’ve spent twenty four hours a day in each other’s company for the past seven weeks.”

“And you still don’t want to kill me.”

“I never said that.”

.

It is after their sixteenth mission. 

SHIELD are thinking of reactivating the Captain America codename.

Steve is shell-shocked when they hand him the shield. He is not old enough for this.

.

“I think you’re rushing this, sir.”

“I think we don’t have a choice, Coulson. Schmidt is back. Zola is back. We better hope to fuck that Rogers and Barnes are back too.”

.

“Who’s gonna follow the guy with the same name as a dead hero?”

“I am,” says Barnes, softly. 

Steve tries to smile. “You think they’re gonna bring back Bucky Barnes’s outfit too?”

“C’mon. Don’t pretend like I wouldn’t look amazing in those tights.” 

“Yeah,” says Steve. “Yeah, okay.”

Barnes blinks, like he wasn’t expecting that admission. Steve presses his hand. “I’m gonna need you, Barnes,” he says.

.

“So this is Captain America Mark One Point Five, huh?” asks Tony Stark.

Steve already doesn’t like him. He feels daft in the uniform, perhaps because it feels pretty comfortable. 

“Is your name really Steve Rogers?” asks Stark. “Or did Coulson get you to change it?”

“Can it, pal,” says Barnes, walking into the conference room. He’s not wearing the old Bucky Barnes uniform. Steve can’t help laughing, though.

“So the Russian killer zombie was your style guru, huh?”

Barnes shrugs. “He had style.”

.

They share a SHIELD-owned apartment. They could live separately. 

“Don’t feel you need to fulfil Coulson’s fantasies of codependency,” says Hill, rather sternly. 

Steve shifts from foot to foot. Barnes shrugs.

When Hill leaves, they turn towards each other. Barnes’ lips are soft, as Steve suspected they might be, and his thighs are hard muscle. Steve sucks bruises into the skin of Barnes’ shoulders and chest. 

They fall asleep in a heap of sweat and come and tangled sheets. 

Neither of them kick.

.

“Do you believe in love at first sight?”

Steve shakes his head but he can’t look away from Barnes’ lips, damp from the expensive whiskey he’s been drinking.

“What _do_ you believe in?” 

_You_ , Steve wants to say. There are rumours that they’re going to face criminals from history and he’s only too aware that they are not their namesakes but sometimes, he thinks that he and Barnes are the only ones who realise that. He shrugs. “That it’s your round.”

Barnes howls with laughter and clasps Steve’s shoulder when he stands up to go to the bar.

.

 _We have an artefact, from Asgard_ , says Fury. 

Thor - actual Thor with armour and a red cape and a hammer and flowing blonde hair - is holding a blue, glowing cube.

Barnes reaches out. 

“Oh my god,” says Steve, grabbing hold of Barnes’ wrist. “Do you have to touch everything shiny?” He thinks that maybe Barnes was the sort of child who always put new and interesting items into his mouth.

Steve doesn’t like the cube.

He is Steve Rogers. He was born in 1987. He is happily bisexual. He finished in the top five of his class at Harvard. 

The cube glows brighter. 

He is.

He. 

The room is filled with blue light.

.

He opens his eyes.

“Welcome back, Cap.” 

“Where am I?”

“You’ve been asleep, Cap. For almost seventy years.”

.

He adjusts to the twenty-first century. His apartment is small but functional. He doesn’t like Tony Stark, who acts like he knows something Steve doesn’t. Phil Coulson is endearing and awkward. Steve is sad when he dies. 

He misses Bucky. 

The Tesseract goes back to Asgard where it belongs. Steve visits the graves of the Commandos. He visits the memorial in Arlington and he misses Bucky some more.

Schmidt and Zola emerge from the woodwork of time but they are easily dispatched, all things considered.

.

There is an accord between the Russians and SHIELD. SHIELD owes them an operative. SHIELD decides that they can do without Bucky Barnes so the Russians take him and refashion him as the Winter Soldier.

His left arm is surgically removed. 

James Barnes was born in 1991 in Indiana. His attention span never was very good. In the nineties, they give him a medical diagnosis. In the twenties, they called it high spirit. 

He is precisely what the Russians want. 

.

Steve walks down a street in Manhattan and someone comes up to him and greets him by name and talks about Worcester and the summer of 2008 and Steve doesn’t have the heart to tell her that she’s mistaken. He never went to Harvard.

.

Steve walks down a street in Manhattan and hears the whistling of a bullet. 

.

A soul is a soul, says Stephen Strange. Regardless of the vessel. 

.

SHIELD can wait.


End file.
